Public Bill Committee

[Hugh Bayley in the Chair]

Further written evidence to be reported to the House

E&S 19 YWCA

Clause 54

Support services: provision by local education authorities

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 93, in clause 54, page 29, line 13, leave out ‘services’ and insert
‘information, advice and guidance about education and career choices’.

Hugh Bayley: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 41, in clause 54, page 29, line 15, at end insert—
‘(1A) Such services must include the provision of—
(a) generic information, advice and guidance, and
(b) targeted support for young people which takes into account their personal circumstances.’.
No. 94, in clause 54, page 29, line 35, at end add—
‘(6) Services provided under this section shall be known as “Connexions”.’.

John Hayes: It is good to see you back in the Chair, Mr. Bayley, and it is good to be back in Committee. As you can tell from my demeanour, I have been preparing carefully this morning.
The gist of the amendment is that if we are to guide young people in the right direction, we must be explicit about the nature of that guidance. I wonder whether, instead of the clause referring simply to “services”, the nature of the new statutory obligations should be made clearer. In that sense, this is a probing amendment to test the Government’s commitment to and understanding of the need to offer the right range of advice and guidance on what is available to young people.
I tabled the amendment in the context that the Opposition continue to have profound reservations about whether Connexions is the right vehicle to provide the range of advice necessary to assist young people. I do not want to undermine or demean Connexions. It does good work; however, it is asked to do too much good work. An all-age careers service dedicated to advising on “career choices”, as the amendment labels them, that sat alongside Connexions would be a much better vehicle to provide the advice and guidance that is required. I have made that point before and make no apologies for mentioning it again.
I am sure that the Government are considering that point, because it has been made not only by the Opposition, but by many agencies. I hope that in responding to the amendment, the Minister will expound his thinking on how he sees careers advice and guidance in the future. The demands upon the service will be greater, given that it will be dealing with the challenges of the statutory provisions at the heart of the Bill.
An all-age careers service is the vehicle used in other places to deliver such advice and guidance—for example, Scotland has an all-age careers service. Many people in the service believe that the problem with Connexions is that it is a jack of all trades, giving advice on sexual health, lifestyle issues and drug problems, rather than simply on careers, training and related subjects. Careers guidance in other European countries tends to be more systematic than in the UK. It tends to begin much earlier and is geared towards providing detailed information on the skills requirements for particular jobs or professions.
In a joint memorandum on the Bill, all the main organisations involved in careers guidance, including the National Association of Connexions Partners and the Institute of Career Guidance, expressed concern that the new local authority duty under the Bill is “not specific enough”. They go on to say:
“Effective participation requires assistance with choices. Such advice and guidance must be about choices not merely of which learning option to follow, but why—that is, with a clear view of progression beyond 18+ into employment (either directly or via further training or higher education). The key is that choices about the relationship between learning and work—i.e. about career—should drive participation in learning.”
The amendment places a clear duty on local authorities to provide just such services and to adopt just such an approach.
Although I started by saying that the amendment is designed to probe the Minister and test the Government’s thinking, it is also built on our considered and profound doubts about whether the proposed arrangements are sufficiently robust and appropriate to give life to the Bill. Those doubts are supported by a number of the agencies that have given evidence on the Bill. Given that critique, if the Minister resists amendment, I hope that he will range widely in saying why he thinks the amendment is not sufficient and not in line with orthodox thinking, and why his dogmatic concentration on the existing structure is right.

Stephen Williams: I assumed that the Conservative spokesman would speak to the wider purposes of the clause, which is primarily to do with young people, including young adults who are in the care of local authorities. I thought that the amendment might at least address that aspect. Such young people may, in fact, be attending the National Star College in the Cotswolds, which I visited last year, where many young adults with learning difficulties and other disabilities attend on a residential basis, not only to be given formal education that leads to qualifications but to be taught valuable life skills.
I support the broad intention of the amendment, which seeks to widen the scope of the clause by replacing the phrase
“such services as it considers appropriate”,
with the more specific “information, advice and guidance”. However, will the Minister expand on what services he believes it would be considered appropriate for the local authority to provide, so that we can see whether the amendment is relevant?

Jim Knight: Good morning, Mr. Bayley, it is a pleasure to see you back in the Chair. We trust that you had a good week last week, when the Committee was under the excellent stewardship of Mr. Bercow.
Amendment No. 94 would specify that services provided under the clause should be known as “Connexions”. In proposing to amend the clause in that way, I thought that the Opposition were seeking to pay tribute to the success of the Connexions service in winning young people’s support and becoming so widely known. I thought that they wanted to sustain a valued brand that is well known to young people and keep the advantages to authorities of badging services offering information, advice and guidance to young people with that name. I then listened to the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings and was saddened to learn that he does not hold Connexions in such high regard, but wants to retain the brand anyway. I reassure him and the Committee that we intend to use the power to direct in clause 55, which I am sure that we will come on to fairly soon, to require authorities to do just that.
To answer the hon. Member for Bristol, West regarding the services we envisage being delivered by what will continue to be known as Connexions, we expect it to carry out the services that the current service does, but to do so to the quality standards that we have published.
Turning to amendments Nos. 94 and 41, as the Committee will already be aware from debate on earlier clauses, Connexions delivers generic information, advice and guidance to young people, as well as more specific information and advice on career choices. That will continue when the responsibility is transferred to local authorities. The service Connexions provides is supported by the new IAG quality standards, which have been largely welcomed by local authorities and their partners.
The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings spoke of his desire for an all-age careers service. He is worried that, given the breadth of the advice that they are required to give, Connexions and its personal advisers are jacks of all trades and masters of none. Obviously, we have to strike a balance between genuine expertise and the ability to offer a joined-up service that can look across the range of issues affecting young people and advise them accordingly. Given the raising of the status of the quality standards—we intend to make them statutory guidance—we believe that we will get the best of both worlds. It is not a question of either/or: we can have personal advisers offering high-quality services and high-quality advice that looks at the range of issues.
I would say to the hon. Gentleman that there is a case for developing an all-age strategy, particularly with the extension of the participation age to 18. The Government are implementing the recommendation in the Leitch report to create a new adult careers service from 2010, and work is in train to development a coherent strategy for careers advice for all ages.

John Hayes: Will the Minister give way?

Jim Knight: I will in just a moment. Let me just finish the points I am making.
We should not necessarily have one service catering for all age groups, as different age groups have different needs. The strategy will help to ensure that transitions between services are managed effectively and that common issues such as labour markets and occupational information, contracting and work force development are looked at collectively, where possible. It will also ensure that the responses acknowledge and respect the different concerns and problems of adults and young people.

John Hayes: Will the Minister provide more detailed information on the pilots now being rolled out for the new adult careers service, as they are highly relevant to the issues implicit in the amendments? Secondly, what are the objectives of the pilots? There is some concern that the objectives are unclear and that the pilots are not being tested against any thesis or assumptions. He might like to take this opportunity to correct that misapprehension, if it is such.

Jim Knight: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to set out more details of the pilots. I fear that I would try your patience, Mr. Bayley, if I were to get too distracted at this point, but if I find an opportunity to address that matter directly as we debate the transfer of Connexions to local authorities, I will return to that issue to inform the Committee as best I can.
Our intention is to raise the status of the quality standards to that of statutory guidance. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are committed to targeted youth support. We expect all authorities to deliver targeted youth support throughout their areas by December this year. That is a challenging but essential aim, and we are working with Government offices, the Training and Development Agency for Schools and local authorities to support that ambitious programme. 
The provision of information, advice and guidance and of targeted youth support will be emphasised as a core function of Connexions through the directions that we will issue under clause 55. We intend those directions to set out that local authorities must ensure the provision of reasonable access to a personal adviser for all 13 to 19-year-olds, and 20 to 24-year-olds with learning difficulties or disabilities, to provide them with information, advice, guidance, advocacy and brokerage, including brokering access to targeted youth support services. We believe that those measures are suitable for ensuring a high-quality and consistent approach, while providing councils with local flexibility.

Nick Gibb: I am surprised that the Minister is resisting amendment No. 93, given that the wording is lifted from the foreword to the “Quality Standards for Young People’s Information, Advice and Guidance” issued by his Department. His right hon. Friend the Minister for Children, Young People and Families says in the first paragraph of that foreword:
“In a complex and changing world all young people need access to good quality, comprehensive and impartial Information, Advice and Guidance...They need good IAG to help them make the right learning and career choices”.
I changed “learning” to “education” in the amendment. I am surprised that the Minister does not agree with his right hon. Friend’s wording and accept our amendment.

Jim Knight: I do not disagree with the wording or the intention of the amendment. I regard it as unnecessary, because we are going to give the guidance that he just referred to statutory status, as I said twice in my comments. That will fulfil the purposes of the amendments. On that basis, I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.

John Hayes: The Minister has underestimated the significance of this aspect of the Bill and, indeed, of this group of amendments. At the end of the day, the success of efforts to increase participation will be dependent—as we have argued repeatedly—on inspiring young people with a new thirst for learning. I believe that that learning must, at its heart, have a test of employability: whether it will lead to greater employability for the young person concerned. Much of that will depend on the learning being tailored to particular outcomes, so advice and guidance are critical.
As I said when moving the amendment, I do not want to demean the Connexions service; it does a good job. However, I am not sure that creating extra demands on an unreformed system is tenable. The clarity of what will be stated in the Bill if the amendment is made will be highly significant in ensuring that advice on careers and on the training related to careers is of a sort that is likely to lead to the encouragement of that thirst for learning and, thus, the greater participation that we all seek.
One might ask why I have reservations. Amendment No. 41, to which I did not speak at length in my opening remarks and on which the Minister did not dwell, either, makes provision for the existing dual-function Connexions service to be separated so that the targeted support can be focused on the young people who need it. The Connexions service cost £475 million in 2006-07, which is more than twice the cost of the careers service in its last year of operation—£236 million in 2000-01. Yet according to Government figures, less than a quarter of young people advised by Connexions actually require the kind of integrated support that it was designed to deliver.
The Minister is right to say that we need to strike a balance between tailored expertise on careers advice and the breadth of services, but I suspect that that balance is not finely tuned at present. That minority of young people who benefit from that range of services—they are often quite challenged people—is certainly getting a good deal out of the existing arrangements. They have a one-stop shop for the range of skills and advice that is necessary for them to prosper. However, I doubt that the generality of young people benefits from the existing arrangements, thus my call for a parallel all-age careers service, which could give the sort of skilled and expert advice necessary for the Bill to have the best effect. The clearer we are about that on the face of the Bill, the better.
Nor am I convinced that the Minister has dealt with the question of capacity. By definition, there will be additional demand: we will draw into the system young people who I suspect do not now seek anything from Connexions, wither careers advice or advice on lifestyle issues. One of the reasons why I asked him about the pilots of the adult careers service was that if we are going to take an holistic approach to the relationship between supply and demand, capacity issues and weighting, we need to know what the Government’s medium-term intentions are regarding the adult careers service. The Minister said that the Government have responded to the Leitch report, but we do not know much about the pilots. The message that I get from the sector is that there are doubts about whether the pilots have been carefully enough thought through and have been built around assumptions that can be tested. Are the pilots aimed at establishing any clear outcomes?
We need to target our support more effectively. The aim of the Bill and of the advice and guidance that is critical to its success is at least in part to deal with the problem of young people not in education, employment or training. It is a cause of immense shame that, according to official figures issued on 16 January, the number of people aged 16 to 25 not in employment, education or training has increased by 223,000 since 2002 to reach 1.24 million. The number of young people who are not in education, employment or training has grown steadily since 1997 and is now a shocking and unacceptable figure. It is inconceivable that the quality of the advice and the nature of the guidance that young people receive from school onwards do not have a role to play in dealing with that. 
That is why I started my summation by saying that the Minister underestimates the significance of this part of the Bill and the amendments. It would perhaps not be an exaggeration to say that failure on NEETs is one of the most damning indictments of the present Government. If I feel strongly and state my case with some passion, it is because this a matter of real important. On the basis of what we have heard from the Minister, I am not inclined to press the amendment, but I hope that he will reflect further on the points made. It is not acceptable not to take this aspect of the Bill sufficiently seriously. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 54 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 55

Directions

Jim Knight: I beg to move amendment No. 190, in clause 55, page 29, line 38, leave out from beginning to ‘the’ in line 40 and insert—
‘(a) specifying’.

Hugh Bayley: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government amendments Nos. 191 to 194.
Amendment No. 95, in clause 55, page 30, line 5, at end insert—
‘(e) specify the minimum qualifications and experience required of providers of services.’.
Government amendments Nos. 195 to 197

Jim Knight: Given that we had a slight problem with the last pair of Government amendments, of which one was not put to the Committee, I want to be absolutely clear that I would like all eight Government amendments in the group to be put to the Committee and agreed to, so that we do not have to return to them on Report.
An effective Connexions service is critical to raising participation—a point that hon. Members have made on several occasions in this Committee and that has just been made at some length by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings. We are committed to devolving responsibility for the delivery of the Connexions service to local education authorities. The Bill will achieve that, but it is important that the Government retain the means to ensure that the essential core functions of Connexions are delivered consistently across authority boundaries.
The Connexions service is currently delivered directly by the Department, and consistency can therefore be managed directly. It is critical to the work that the Connexions service does to reduce the number of young people not in education, employment and training, which will become ever more important under our proposals for raising the participation age, that there is national co-ordination and consistency, for the sake of service users. Clause 55 as drafted therefore proposed a broad power to give directions to a local education authority on the exercise of its Connexions functions set out in clause 54—the delivery of Connexions services. Subsections of clause 55 set out what the directions may cover.
On further consideration, I have decided that it would be better if that direction-making power were more tightly defined, and I imagine that members of the Committee will agree that that is desirable. That deals with a concern expressed to me on behalf of local government. The agreement between local and central Government following the local government White Paper allows local government a wide range of freedom and flexibility in how it delivers agreed outcomes. A broad power to direct might be taken to signal that central Government were not committed to that agreement, however clear and tightly focused our intention.
I shall outline the effect of each amendment as briefly as I can. Amendments Nos. 190 and 191 will narrow the power to direct by limiting its operation to the areas set out in the subsections that follow. Amendment No. 192 will remove from the scope of the directions two areas of operation: setting out how Connexions services are to be made available and specifying standards that are to be met. As I have just explained, I accept that those could be considered incompatible with the new local performance framework and the agreed national indicator set. Amendment No. 193 will replace the areas for direction removed by amendment No. 192 and therefore sets out what directions may cover. The first paragraph of amendment No. 192 allows directions that specify the descriptions of individuals who may be involved in delivering Connexions. We propose to use that to specify minimum qualifications for Connexions personal advisers.
Now is a good point to discuss amendment No. 95, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and is grouped with the Government amendments. I hope that it is a probing amendment, designed to clarify our expectations of the qualifications held by Connexions personal advisers. Quite apart from the provisions in clause 55, the quality standards for information, advice and guidance, which we discussed earlier, deal with the qualifications and experience of staff. We will ensure that local authorities must have regard to those standards. Section 10 of the standards is the relevant section. As I made clear, we will use the direction-making power provided by the first paragraph of the amendment to specify the minimum level of qualifications that we expect Connexions personal advisers to hold, in keeping with what is in the standard. On that basis, I hope that the amendment is not pressed.
The second paragraph of amendment No. 193 allows directions that require the authority to ensure that the authority or any Connexions provider delivering services on its behalf co-operates with the national Connexions Direct service. Connexions Direct is an award-winning national helpline and website service for young people. It complements face-to-face services provided by local Connexions services and is highly regarded by young people. The website regularly has over 100,000 visits per week. The service has received extremely positive feedback from young people. The website holds information on local Connexions provision—for example address and phone numbers, local website links and details of major activities or campaigns—which adds to the site’s value. It also supports local Connexions services. It will only work, however, if local authorities keep it up to date. The paragraph also allows directions requiring co-operation with Jobcentre Plus and any other agencies that help young people find suitable employment, education or training. I can envisage the national apprenticeship service being included here.
The third paragraph of amendment No. 193 allows directions to deal with the use of the Connexions brand. That is the direction-making power to which I referred when speaking to amendment No. 94. Since Connexions was established, the brand has acquired well established recognition among young people. We want the brand to continue to be prominent after local authorities take responsibility for the services under clause 54. That way, young people know the core services that are on offer and what they can expect.
Amendment No. 194 allows us to direct authorities to adhere to the national specifications for the Connexions client information system. That is very important if we are to have easy and rapid updating of information on individual young people. It is also important for ensuring that we have data security to high national standards.

John Hayes: The Minister is giving a comprehensive account of these important amendments. To what extent does he anticipate local authorities will need to interact in this regard? We have not discussed that much. He mentioned the need to have systems that are interoperable. I am not sure we have sufficiently considered how much interaction there will be, not merely between agencies but between areas, for supporting young people.

Jim Knight: There is considerable interaction between different areas of Connexions. Services in those different areas will be delivered by local authorities and will be the responsibility of local authorities. The sorts of interaction generally relate to young people who live in one place and access education and training or work in another. There are also young people who travel from one place to another and who might turn up in a different place and access Connexions. A decision has to be made on whether they are temporarily in a place and it is best to continue with the previous personal adviser, or whether it is best to transfer the advice into the local area. Similarly if a Connexions service run by a local authority in one area where a young person lives started the advice, it is likely that they would carry on that advice even if a young person accessed education and training in a different authority. A decision might, however, be made between authorities, in consultation with the young person and the educational institution they are attending, on whether or not it is appropriate to move the service from one local authority to another. I hope that that satisfactorily answers the hon. Gentleman’s question.
Beneath that sort of real interaction, which is designed to offer a joined-up, seamless service for young people, data transfers are required within the Connexions client information system. The hon. Gentleman used the word interoperable, which may not be entirely the right word, but if the services are all to be delivered to the same standard, the various data systems do need to be interoperable. The relationship with Connexions Direct and the Connexions client information system is a different one. The national Connexions service does not hold data on individuals; the data that are passed up are anonymised and are used for statistical purposes.
The hon. Gentleman can make his long and passionate speech about our difficulties with NEETs, but while we are on the subject, it is worth saying that the rise in the number of NEETs is due partly to the rise in the number of 16 to 18-year-olds, but we certainly do not shy away from the problems. However, participation rates have increased in recent years: the proportion of 16 to 18-year-olds in education or training was 77.3 per cent. at the end of 2006, an increase from 76.8 per cent. the previous year. We are seeing some good trends, but that does not mean that we do not take the problem very seriously. The whole reason for trying to pass the Bill is that we want to be able to tackle this problem.

John Hayes: I do not want to go down the NEETs road, Mr. Bayley, not because it is not vital, but because I suspect you would not let me. Back on this issue of interoperability, which is critical to this group of amendments, we heard disturbing evidence from the Association of Colleges that, in its opinion, the Connexions database, which lies at the heart of the Bill’s work, was “not fit for purpose”. I speak without knowledge of that beyond what we were offered, and certainly with no dogma, but that analysis was disturbing. That view was later countered by other witnesses, but given what the Minister was just saying about that database being the heart of the information that is going to be shared across agencies and areas, on what basis does he think that claim was made and is there any substance in it?

Jim Knight: Obviously I heard what the Association of Colleges had to say in response to the question and what was said by the witness from Connexions who disagreed with that assessment. I have looked at other assessments of the CCIS by the Prime Minister’s delivery unit, among others. There is a good degree of confidence in the system. That does not mean to say that in the period between now and when we raise the participation age, there is not further refinement to be done to the system, but we remain extremely confident that is a robust system, which has been working reasonably well for Connexions in its present operations.
Amendment No. 194 will also allow us to issue directions on another important subject. Young people, especially in our cities, often go to a school, college or training provider outside their home area. If for any reason they drop out of learning, it is most important that that information gets swiftly to the Connexions provider for that school or college, and that the provider passes on the information without delay so that it reaches the authority in the person’s home area. If the young person has dropped out of learning, it is the home authority that has the duty to follow them up and to take every possible step to get them back into education, training or employment.
Amendment No. 195, makes it clear that matters in subsections (3) and (4) are those about which directions can be given. Finally, amendments Nos. 196 and 197 are important clarificatory amendments. Amendment No. 196 deals with the effective delivery of a range of important services to improve opportunities for young people. It makes it clear that directions can require a local education authority to ensure that whoever carries out Connexions functions under clause 54, whether it is the local authority or a Connexions provider, also provides other services specified in the direction. Those services need not relate to education, but may relate to social security. For example, it is intended that, if necessary, the power could be used to ensure that local education authorities and others providing Connexions services are also responsible for conducting work-focused interviews with young persons, using powers in social security legislation. That ensures that a range of activity aimed at helping young persons into education, training or employment can be brought together in one place. Amendment No. 197 makes it clear that different directions, as provided for in this clause, can be given, depending on the Connexions service in question.
Having set out the case for amendments Nos. 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196 and 197, I ask the Opposition not to press amendment No. 95.

John Hayes: The Minister said that he felt we would be pleased with the amendments, because they clarify and specify various aspects of how, why and where advice and guidance will be given to young people in respect of the new provisions in the Bill. He is right: I do welcome those clarifications. The Bill was insufficiently clear as drafted. For some of the reasons that I advanced during the debate on the previous set of amendments, we think that that is unacceptable and seek greater clarity of the kind the Minister is hoping to provide through the Government amendments. That is why we tabled amendment No. 95, which would specify the minimum qualifications and experience required of providers of services, although I note that the Government’s panoply of amendments also deals with the nature of providers and their qualifications.
The important aspect of this debate, which we will no doubt repeat when we discuss amendment No. 96, is that we need to be absolutely clear about how, where and by what method advice is to be given. I intervened on the Minister in respect of interaction between agencies, and I think that he recognises that that is an important point. I am not sure, however, that interaction is assisted by the enormous number of organisations that are now to have a hand in giving advice or managing the system. For example, there is to be a new apprenticeships advisory body—the national apprenticeships service—as a result of the apprenticeships review. It is not terribly clear how that will co-ordinate its work with all the others that have a role in these matters.
I could go on about some of the other risks of lack of clarity and consistency in the way young people are guided and supported, but the Minister is right to say that the Government amendments are helpful. They do provide some of the answers to questions we have posed, and they are certainly a step in the right direction. It would therefore be churlish of us not to give them a welcome, if only a lukewarm welcome, or to divide the Committee on any of them. Neither, on that basis, would we want to press amendment No. 95.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendments made: No. 191, in clause 55, page 29, line 41, at end insert
‘in the exercise of the authority’s functions under section 54(1);’.
No. 192, in clause 55, page 30, line 1, leave out paragraphs (b) and (c).
No. 193, in clause 55, page 30, line 3, at end insert—
‘( ) specifying the descriptions of individual who may be involved, in ways specified in the direction, in the provision of such services;
( ) requiring the authority to secure that any person by whom such services are provided (whether the authority or any other person) co-operates with—
(i) any person providing services under section 59;
(ii) any person exercising functions, or providing services, which relate to social security or are connected with finding suitable employment, education or training for young persons or relevant young adults;
( ) as to the names and symbols to be used, in ways specified in the direction, in connection with services provided in pursuance of section 54(1);’.
No. 194, in clause 55, page 30, line 4, leave out from beginning to ‘in’ in line 5 and insert—
‘( ) imposing requirements as to—
(i) the keeping of records, or
(ii) the provision of information to local education authorities and persons providing services in pursuance of section 54(1),’.
No. 195, in clause 55, page 30, line 6, leave out from ‘(3)’ to ‘a local’ and insert
‘The Secretary of State may direct’.
No. 196, in clause 55, page 30, line 8, after first ‘services’ insert
‘(whether the local education authority or any other person)’.—[Jim Knight.]

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 96, in clause 55, page 30, leave out lines 14 and 15 and insert—
‘(a) may be functions or services relating to social security,
(b) may specify co-ordination of careers information and guidance with learn Direct and Job Centre Plus, and
(c) may specify the provision of functions and services matching young people with employers offering apprenticeships.’.
After that uncontentious run through a series of procedurally complex amendments, we move to the altogether more straightforward matter of amendment No. 96. As we have been discussing, the clause gives the Secretary of State the power to give directions to a local authority relating to the exercise of its duty to provide support for effective participation. There are concerns that the clause will not ensure that basic standards will be met. I have made the argument this morning that we need to be explicit in our demands on those who are missioned to provide support to young people. Amendment No. 95, which I did not press, was designed to ensure that professional standards were adequate, and the Government amendments add some of the greater clarity that I have argued for.
The amendment may be fairly technical, but it reflects concerns that through our discussions and in the Bill we should support high-quality careers advice and a highly professional careers service. In their memorandum on the Bill, all the professional bodies involved in careers advice said that the clause needs to be strengthened. It currently provides a power to the Secretary of State, but they argue that it should be a duty. The professional bodies urge that
“at the appropriate time in the passage of the Bill, an amendment to this effect be tabled.”
They feel that it is
“unacceptable to leave this to ‘chance’; the Secretary of State should ensure that, in every locality, quality is assured to national specification and standards.”
There is a great danger that the system of careers advice that is developing is fragmented because it consists of too many agencies with overlapping responsibilities. The amendment is designed to address that risk. I alluded to that point a few moments ago when I mentioned the doubts about whether the apprenticeship review would add yet more complexity to the system, obscuring it still further. There is the new adult careers service that the Government are piloting, consisting of Learn Direct and Next Step; skills brokers, who offer advice in respect of Train to Gain; the new apprenticeship service that I have mentioned; Connexions, for young people, which I described earlier as a jack of all trades; and additional advice that will be offered, as it is now, through schools and colleges, often completely independently of Connexions.
It will be hard enough to draw the new young people whom we will be dealing with into the system, as many of them face all kinds of challenges. I suspect that the best way of advising and guiding them will be through a system that is transparent, accessible and straightforward. It is not certain that the panoply of organisations in the domain will provide that degree of clarity. Our doubts relate primarily to quality, which must be assured. That concern has been a theme of our debate thus far this morning. Secondly, they relate to consistency: what is done must work across organisations and areas. Thirdly, they relate to clarity and transparency, and thus the need for a dedicated service.
There is a strong case that the adult service should be joined up, with advice given to young people through an all-age careers service. If we really want to imbue a culture of learning as Lord Leitch advocates, we need a respected and universally recognised source of advice that everyone can access. That sort of recognition requires a universal service. I do not want to become tiresome in my advocacy of that approach, but we have an important opportunity to explore the quality and nature of the advice that we offer young people. On that basis, I wait to hear whether the Minister can offer us further assurances on those three areas of doubt that I have identified.

Jim Knight: We have agreed to all but one of the Government amendments to clause 55, which make more specific the direction-giving power that we feel is needed. The amendment largely applies to subsection (4), which is about joining up services rather than establishing new services. The amendment concerns Connexions providers co-ordinating careers information and guidance with Learn Direct and Jobcentre Plus. It also enables directions to specify Connexions to carry out functions in services matching young people with employers offering apprenticeships. As the clause is drafted, even in the amended form, we have all the powers necessary to do that, as well as the intention to do that.
It is important that Connexions providers liaise with all the local services that are helping young people to get the skills, training and jobs that they need. As we have discussed, the directions allowed by the clause will provide the power to direct those providing Connexions services to co-operate with those exercising functions or providing services relating to social security, such as Jobcentre Plus. They could also be used to require co-operation with other agencies that help young people to find employment, education or training. Connexions services have a good track record of working with Jobcentre Plus and other agencies, and we do not want to disturb that. However, if we feel that we have to direct authorities on the issue, we will do so. We will consult on the detailed content of the directions on the passage of the Bill.
On the subject of matching young people with employers offering apprenticeships, the Committee may know that the apprenticeship review announced plans for a new national apprenticeships service. I do not want to say too much about that now as I imagine that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills may want to touch on it when we discuss clause 67. However, I will say that we expect the national apprenticeships service to work closely with Connexions, perhaps even being based, in some cases, in Connexions’ high street outlets. The national apprenticeships service will also help careers guidance staff in schools and colleges to offer well informed and balanced advice about the apprenticeship programme to all their students. The field force could be invited by schools and colleges to participate in careers guidance evenings, to give students direct information.
The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings has concerns about quality assurance. We have already discussed that, and I have mentioned many times that the quality standard will have statutory force. Clearly there is some overlap with other agents, but we want the wide remit for Connexions personal advisers to continue, and to be developed and deepened and the quality raised, so that the advisers can hold the ring for young people and are able to broker access to the range of other agencies that might be able to provide specific and discrete advice. I hope that that satisfies the Committee and that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the amendment is not necessary and will therefore withdraw it.

John Hayes: We have had a good run on this matter this morning and I think that the Minister has got the message that we are absolutely determined that the advice and guidance given to young people should be appropriate, and that we have greater doubts than he has about the capacity of the existing system to deliver that appropriate service.
The Government’s thinking on that might be iterative, in that the piloting of an adult service could lead to a different perspective on how careers advice is given to adults and young people alike. Indeed, I predict that, over time, we will rethink the relationship between Connexions and careers advice and guidance. The purpose of the amendment was to explore those issues, and it has done its job. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment made: No. 197, in clause 55, page 30, line 16, at end insert—
‘( ) Different directions may be given under this section in relation to different descriptions of service.’.—[Jim Knight.]

Clause 55, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 56

Local education authorities: supplementary powers

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Stephen Williams: I want to make a few remarks, essentially to get an assurance from the Minister on the record. The clause says that local education authorities in England
“may provide, secure the provision of or participate in the provision of services”.
Does that open the door for local authorities not just to provide services themselves but to procure those services from the voluntary sector?
During our evidence-taking sessions we heard from two organisations that are particularly successful in working with young people who have perhaps become disengaged from education—the Prince’s Trust and Fairbridge. Both organisations have extremely good track records of working with people who are not in education, employment or training.
During the recess, I attended City of Bristol college at a time when a group of young people who had been through a Prince’s Trust course were completing their assignments and giving their end-of-course presentations. The transformation of those young people from the start of the course to the giving of their presentations to the audience was quite incredible, particularly given their growth in self-confidence while under the care of the Prince’s Trust. I have seen similar journeys by people who have taken Fairbridge access to learning courses.
I would like an assurance from the Minister that the clause opens the way for local education authorities to engage with the third sector—after all, we do have a Minister with responsibility for the third sector. Such organisations should have a recognised role in providing information, advice and guidance, or access to learning and training courses, which will perhaps lead to formal qualifications. I would like an assurance that the clause opens that possibility.

Jim Knight: The clause principally relates to the responsibility of local authorities to deliver Connexions services in line with current practice. It will allow local authorities the maximum possible flexibility. The clause proposes that local authorities should have the power to deliver Connexions services on behalf of another local authority where such arrangements are already made. The clause can be used by local education authorities to procure services from others, including the voluntary sector.
Subsection (1)(a) and (b) refer to clause 54, which states in subsection (3):
“For the purposes of this section and section 55, a local education authority makes services available if it ... makes arrangements with another local education authority or another person for their provision.”
That provision allows local education authorities to use some of the niche capability to which the hon. Gentleman rightly referred, and which can be extremely effectively delivered by voluntary sector organisations. I hope that he agrees, along with the rest of the Committee, that the clause should stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 56 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 58

Educational institutions: access and facilities

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 98, in clause 58, page 31, line 32, after ‘56(1)(b)’, insert
‘and subject to the consent of the pupil or student.’.
As you will have noticed, Mr. Bayley, after his arduous work over recent weeks, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton is having a rather quieter time this morning than he has had thus far. The burden has fallen heavily on me. None the less, he has been useful and supportive, as always in our team, in reminding me of the substance of the amendment. According to the explanatory notes:
“Clause 58 places a duty on the responsible persons for educational institutions to allow Connexions service providers reasonable access to pupils and students and to provide reasonable facilities on the institution’s premises for providing services.”
The amendment is straightforward, and it simply says that the powers that Connexions service providers are given should be
“subject to the consent of the pupil or student.”
That is important, because it underpins the approach that we have taken throughout our considerations that the Bill must be about engaging young people by encouraging them to make a positive commitment, rather than obliging them in a way that is likely to exacerbate their detachment from learning and skilling. We have relentlessly championed the cause of those young people, particularly the most vulnerable, and I make no apologies for doing so. It is my mission in politics to speak most loudly for those least able to speak for themselves. In that spirit, I am proud to have moved the amendment that stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, who has given me such assistance in making this short peroration.

Jim Knight: I start by congratulating the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings and his scriptwriter, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, on that peroration. The effect of the amendment would be to prevent Connexions services from having access to students and available facilities in their place of learning, unless consent was given by the student. That would make it much more difficult for the Connexions service to provide support to young people, and it would also create an unhelpful, complicated and confusing layer of bureaucracy for schools and colleges.
Learning providers already enable all students to access Connexions, so that the service can offer them support. As local authorities are going to take responsibility for providing the Connexions service, the present arrangements should continue. If that were not the case, it would significantly jeopardise the effectiveness of the Connexions service. If accepted, the amendment would mean that the Connexions service would be unable to access in their place of learning young people who failed or refused to give their consent. Very often, those young people are the most vulnerable ones, and include individuals with behavioural problems or chaotic lifestyles—the very people whom the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings has told us it is his mission in politics to represent.
The amendment would effectively bar Connexions services from helping the young people who need their support the most. I do not believe that that is the hon. Gentleman’s intention. I believe it is rather to ensure that if learning providers provide Connexions services access to their students, the students are under no obligation to accept the offer of Connexions support unless they choose to do so. That is existing practice, particularly in the case of one-to-one support, where the student has actively to engage with the Connexions personal adviser of their own volition.
The clause, as drafted, will continue to facilitate the existing arrangements, which are vital to the successful operations of Connexions services. There is no question of a young person being put in detention so that they can be forced to have a meeting with the personal adviser. It would remain a voluntary activity on the part of the young person. I would not want Connexions to be unable to go on to a school site without a specific piece of consent from a specific pupil.

Oliver Heald: One of the problems that arises at some further education colleges is that popular courses are oversubscribed. If there is a hairdressing suite, for example, it can only take so many hairdressers. Would the provision interfere with that in any way? Would it enable a Connexions adviser to force somebody on to a hairdressing course if there was not really room for them?

Jim Knight: No, it would not interfere with that at all. There is no question of personal advisers forcing individuals on to particular courses. It is important that young people are motivated to take courses.

Oliver Heald: I did not mean forcing an individual to do a course, but forcing the institution to take an extra individual when that course is full.

Jim Knight: I do not believe that the service would have the power to force institutions to take individuals on to certain courses. The only powers of which I am aware are those that require institutions to accept individuals of compulsory school age. Those matters are dealt with in the admissions code, which has statutory force. The change that we made in the Education and Inspections Act 2006 means that a local authority can require an institution to take a looked-after child if it is in the best interests of that child’s education. I hope that in the light of my response to those interventions and my reasoning the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.

John Hayes: I shall not press the amendment, although I want to re-emphasise my point: the system will work only if it inspires young people to make their own commitment to be advised and trained. It will not work if young people are dragged grudgingly, kicking and screaming, towards the Connexions adviser, then forced on to a training course that they do not want to take. That will simply not work. During the passage of the Bill, we have made that point repeatedly—amplified beautifully by my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton in particular—but I am not sure that it has been heard clearly by Ministers. Although I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment, I suspect that we will return to the matter time and again in the continuing passage of the legislation.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 58 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 59

Internet and telephone support services etc

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 184, in clause 59, page 32, line 11, at end insert—
‘(c) the information, advice or guidance to be provided by telephone or other electronic means may include information and options expressed by persons who have pursued or are pursuing education, training or careers which are of interest to the said young persons and relevant young adults.’.
This group of amendments—

Hugh Bayley: To clarify the position for the hon. Gentleman’s benefit, we are considering the two amendments separately: at the moment we are debating amendment No. 184; we will come to amendment No. 185 later.

John Hayes: I am grateful, Mr. Bayley. I have notes on both amendments, but I accept that we are dealing with them separately.
Amendment No. 184 would insert additional subsection (c) into the clause, and I will illustrate the subject with a word or two about the view of the distinguished educational charity, Edge. Clause 59 says:
“The Secretary of State may provide or secure the provision of services for encouraging, enabling or assisting the effective participation of young persons and relevant young adults in England in education or training.”
As Edge reminds us, that includes the publication of information, advice and guidance, and responding to particular requests for information electronically or by telephone. The provision for advice is important, and clause 59 should be read alongside clause 66, which requires schools to provide impartial information and advice for education, training and careers.
As an aside, I am anxious that the advice given by schools and colleges and the advice given by Connexions should be consistent. In our last debate, we talked about the new powers that Connexions will have to offer advice in educational institutions, but we did not explore in detail the risk of inconsistency, which might come from advice being given by different people to individuals in schools and colleges. The Minister might want to deal with that in his summation.
The Edge foundation welcomes the clauses, because they emphasise the importance of comprehensive and impartial information, advice and guidance on educational training and careers. However, it believes that if young people are interested in a particular course or career, they should be able to hear directly from people who have pursued, or are pursuing, that course or career. There are many ways in which that can be achieved, but the internet opens up almost unlimited opportunities. That argument has considerable merit. Young people are often most inspired by people who have done something themselves. Through such examples, we can engage people whom we might not successfully encourage down a particular professional route by other means. Edge uses as an example the national youth volunteering service, which provides substantial financial support for a web-based service called “horsesmouth”. Through horsesmouth, people considering different options for learning and careers put questions to people who have faced similar choices. The website says:
“When faced with a choice, challenge or change in life, do you ever wonder how other people have coped in the same situation—what choices did they make, and how did they turn out? Wouldn’t it be useful if you could talk to someone who has been there, done that and is willing to share their first-hand experience with you? Wouldn’t it be great fun if that could be anonymous, confidential and secure?”
Such services should form a core part of the service offered by the Secretary of State in pursuance of the power created by clause 59, and that is the purpose of amendment No. 184. Essentially, the argument is that we should use the latest technology, emulate the best existing practice, and recognise that young people are often most influenced by seeing how something has been done through the eyes of someone else who has done it.

Gordon Marsden: I am listening with interest to the case that the hon. Gentleman is making for other mechanisms to give information, advice and guidance, not least the suggestions from Edge and horsesmouth. Is he aware that the all-party skills group is conducting an inquiry into information, advice and guidance? That report will be published in due course, to the edification, I hope, of everyone, including Ministers.

John Hayes: Yes, I was aware of that, because I do, as the hon. Gentleman knows, maintain a healthy dialogue with the all-party group. In fact, I am pleased to have been invited to attend and speak at events organised by the hon. Gentleman, and I pay tribute to his work in that regard. I hope that the all-party group will come to a similar conclusion to the one that I have reached on advice and guidance, which I have articulated at considerable, but not sufficient, length.
There is good practice out there, and not all of it revolves around the mainstream institutions. It stems partly from the dynamism offered by technology, from which we can learn from and which therefore needs to be built into our thinking when considering this part of the Bill. I do not know if the all-party group has had a chance to look at that proposal, but if they have not, it may not be too late to use the provision as a catalyst for doing so.

Gordon Marsden: Although we are an all-party group and not subject to the requirements of Select Committees, it would be invidious to go into too much detail ant what may, or may not, be proposed. However, this is an area in which everyone, including the Government, wishes to look carefully at new mechanisms. The question is: what are the precise devices for using the new mechanisms?

John Hayes: I did not want to compromise the hon. Gentleman’s position, as I am sure he knows, but we have had a helpful exchange. The way in which people gather, exchange and use information has changed immensely, and continues to do so. That lies at the core of our considerations today. The fact that we are talking about young people only exaggerates the significance of that point, because I suspect that many young people are accustomed to accessing information wholly or mainly by technological means. That is why Edge has done us a service in advising us on these matters, and I am delighted to reflect its perspective in the amendment.

Jim Knight: I agree with Edge, with the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, and with my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South, that it is important that young people should have access to the opinions and experiences of those who are already engaged in education, training or a particular career. I am pleased to be able to tell the Committee that the national service, Connexions direct, provides that material on its excellent website, www.connexions-direct.com, and I am sure the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings will be reaching as we speak for his hand-held device to access it, Mr. Bayley, if that is in order.
Furthermore, if a young person cannot find a case study that is relevant to them, they can inform the Connexions contractor, who will take steps to find or commission an appropriate case study. That is precisely what Edge and the hon. Gentleman are interested in. There are close links between Connexions direct and organisations such as sector skills councils, which have databases of case studies that can be accessed. Connexions direct is an extremely successful service for young people in England, and it also offers an excellent helpline on 080 800 13219. There are more than 100,000 visits a week to the website, with an average 6,000 contacts to the helpline. The service has won several awards, and it offers information, advice and guidance at a time and in a way that is convenient and tailored to the needs of young people, particularly those who like to access their information by technology. Connexions direct is always considering new ways and initiatives to improve its service, and I am sure it will have listened carefully to what hon. Members have said, and will listen to what the all-party group report and Edge might tell it.
As for the consistency between schools and Connexions that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings raised at the beginning of his speech, 14-to-19 partnerships have responsibility to ensure proper co-ordination between careers education in schools and the information, advice and guidance provided by Connexions and local authorities. The quality standards set out that requirement, and I have already referred to the importance of those standards. Local 14-to-19 consortiums have to show that they meet the standards to progress through the diploma gateway. As the service the hon. Gentleman requires is already available, and will continue to be so under the clause as drafted, and given the indications I have made to the Committee, I invite him to withdraw the amendment.

John Hayes: I appreciate the Minister’s remarks. This is a probing amendment, designed to highlight an important matter. The Minister might want to reflect further on the generality of this debate, given what the hon. Member for Blackpool, South and I have said and what Edge has observed. By the time that the Bill is enacted, assuming that that is so—we have no guarantee that the Bill will ever become law—it could easily be the case that anything other than the advice and guidance that is offered through the means that horsesmouth uses will be regarded as archaic. In that context, we need to be absolutely clear about how we use the available technology to best effect.
The revolution has only just begun, and although I am a deep Conservative and am resistant to all revolutions, I suspect that we have to deal with the inevitability of a changed world with regard to the use, exchange and distribution of information. Nevertheless, on the basis of what the Minister has said and the chance that we have had to explore those matters, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 185, in clause 59, page 32, line 11, at end insert—
‘(c) the provision, in response to requests by young persons and relevant young adults with visual impairment, of text books and educational course materials, capable of enlargement and enhancement by electronic means.’.
This is the amendment that I tried to move earlier, but you advised me that I could not do so, Mr. Bayley.

Hugh Bayley: It was a simple matter of looking at my selection list.

John Hayes: Indeed. The amendment speaks for itself. We have not said much—indeed, we have perhaps said too little—about how the Bill will affect young people with various kinds of disability. Among the population of NEETs, as I lamented earlier, is a substantial number of young people with learning difficulties or other disabilities, and we need to concentrate particularly on their needs if we are to be successful in providing them with appropriate training that is likely to allow them to gain employment. The amendment deals with one group of young people: those with visual impairment. We ought, however, to find ways during the passage of the Bill to speak more broadly about disabled young people and people with learning difficulties.

Hugh Bayley: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that this is an important but very narrow amendment dealing with visual impairment. He rightly says that there might be opportunities elsewhere in the Bill to discuss other disabilities, but we should stick to visual impairment, because it is with that that the amendment is concerned.

John Hayes: I take your point, Mr. Bayley. I did say, very much in that spirit, that we might find an opportunity to debate the wider issue at another time, but this debate is specifically about people with visual impairment. The amendment would implicitly add value to clause 59. It is important that we make adequate provision for young people who might otherwise be disfranchised simply because they cannot access the materials necessary to improve their circumstances. I find it almost inconceivable that, on that basis, the Minister will fail to accept the amendment.

Angela Watkinson: This is an important if narrow amendment, which gives us the opportunity to right a wrong of which I was not previously aware, as may have been the case for other members of the Committee. It was drawn to my attention last year. Hon. Members may recall a lobby in Westminster Hall called “Right to Read”, in which parents of sight-impaired children came to Parliament lobby their MPs about their inability to access textbooks and learning material in schools.
At the moment, when a partially sighted pupil in a mainstream school goes to a lesson, the teacher must identify the relevant pages of the textbook that will be used and photocopy them. That takes up teaching time and delays the partially sighted pupil’s ability to start work. There are also obvious disadvantages with homework, as the situation deters those children from working independently. Initial inquiries that I made last year have led me to understand that there is not a copyright problem in having school textbooks available online, so that individual partially sighted pupils can enlarge and enhance the relevant text to their own needs.
It follows that the same problem will apply in college. I would therefore like to take the opportunity to make teaching materials available to partially sighted pupils in college, because it gives them independence and they will not have to rely on the additional service of teachers. If they could access all their teaching materials and textbooks independently online, it would be of enormous advantage to them, and it is relatively simple to make such material available.

Jim Knight: I am in complete agreement with the hon. Members for South Holland and The Deepings and for Upminster that young people with visual impairments should be able to derive the same benefit from information provision as their peers.
I applaud the hon. Member for Upminster for raising the “Right to Read” campaign and the importance of school textbooks being accessible to people with visual impairments. I will not be distracted for long in responding to her concerns, because I am aware of the narrowness of the amendment, Mr. Bayley, as you reminded the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings. However, part IV of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 requires schools and local authorities to plan to improve access to the curriculum and written materials to disabled pupils over time. In addition, the new disability equality duty introduced by the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 into the 1995 Act requires all public bodies, including schools and local authorities, to promote disability equality more widely. As a result, new subsection 49A(1)(d), which deals with the general duty, includes
“the need to take steps to take account of disabled persons’ disabilities, even where that involves treating disabled persons more favourably than other persons”.
That is the duty under which we would want to see that problem addressed.

Angela Watkinson: May I just add that 2008 is the national year of reading, so it would be the ideal time to take this step?

Jim Knight: It certainly is the national year of reading. I had an excellent meeting with the consortium that is helping us to deliver it yesterday. I will look at whether there are opportunities to develop reading materials for the group which the hon. Member for Upminster discussed.
As hon. Members may be aware, my Department’s special educational needs strategy, “Removing Barriers to Achievement”, sets out our vision for giving children with special educational needs and disabilities the opportunity to succeed. Furthermore, as I have said, there are various duties in the disability discrimination legislation that cover the needs of visually impaired young people, as is the case with other disability groups. The national service, Connexions direct, which is subject to the amendment, has taken great steps to ensure that its services are available to people with visual impairment. It is concerned with the provision of information, advice and support to young people, rather than with the provision of course materials, which was raised by the hon. Member for Upminster. To meet best practice and Government accessibility guidelines, the Connexions direct website has been developed to comply with the web accessibility initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium. Connexions direct has worked extensively with the Royal National Institute of Blind People to ensure that, as far as possible, its materials are accessible to people with visual impairments. I have a list of about seven things they have done to meet that standard.
As a result of making those changes and design amendments, Connexions direct was successful in winning a visionary design award for the site’s outstanding efforts in ensuring the accessibility of content for visually impaired users. I am assured that it is committed to keeping that design on its website, to which the amendment refers. I trust that, in the light of that assurance, and the fact that this really is an example of best practice, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings will withdraw his amendment.

John Hayes: I will do so but, first, I wish to endorse the remarks by my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster that this is a critically important matter. I am delighted to hear that Connexions has won that award and that it takes seriously its work for visually impaired young people. The access to information for visually impaired people is variable—I am not speaking in particular about Connexions, but about access more generally—which explains our determination to highlight the matter by tabling an amendment. The Minister has responded positively to the matters raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster and myself, but we will not rest until we are sure that those good intentions are carried through and that visually impaired young people have the same opportunities that are enjoyed by all other young people. However, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment on the basis of the assurances we have received today.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 59 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 60

Inspection

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 99, in clause 60, page 32, line 24, after ‘State’, insert
‘or on request by at least 50 pupils, students or parents resident in the local authority area’.
Clause 60 places a duty on the chief inspector to inspect and report on Connexions services
“when requested to do so by the Secretary of State”.
As the House of Lords inquiry into the apprenticeship system found last year, Ofsted, which previously inspected Connexions partnerships, has not had the power to inspect Connexions since 2004 except as part of a wider joint area review. In previous debates, I have quoted the report by the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs entitled “Apprenticeship: a key route to skill”, which acknowledged that there had been no proper oversight of Connexions by Ofsted since 2004.
Amendment 99 would ensure that, if local people are concerned about the quality of the Connexions service in their area, they can trigger an inspection by the Chief inspector. It would make the process of inspection responsive to local needs. In responding to the amendment, will the Minister explain the process which would lead the Secretary of State to insist on an inspection under the Bill as drafted? Doubts about the inspection machinery for Connexions underlie the amendment. The Minister has spoken a great deal about advice and guidance this morning, because that is the area of the Bill with which we are dealing. Indeed, he has spoken confidently about the role of Connexions in giving that advice and guidance. However, if that role is to be assured, an appropriate inspections regime must be in place, and we are not confident that that is the case.

Jim Knight: The clause provides that Her Majesty’s chief inspector of education, children’s services and skills must inspect and report on matters concerning Connexions services if requested to do so by the Secretary of State or at any other time she thinks fit. The amendment proposes that if at least 50 pupils, students or parents resident in a local authority request an investigation, the chief inspector would be under a duty to conduct one. I reassure the Committee that individuals or groups are free to petition the Secretary of State or Her Majesty’s chief inspector to undertake inspections. Such petitions are taken very seriously by both parties. Indeed, one complaint that identifies a significant risk to the well-being of young people is all that is needed under the current regime.
Moreover, in performing her functions, Her Majesty’s chief inspector is under a general duty to encourage user-focused services. She must have regard to views expressed by service users and parents. It must be for the benefit of children and employers that services are inspected, and their levels of satisfaction must be taken into account. Those provisions are set out in section 119 of the Education Inspections Act 2006. They apply to all of the functions of Her Majesty’s chief inspector and will therefore apply to inspections under the clause.

John Hayes: Why is the current regime not working? According to the House of Lords inquiry, an inspection of Connexions has not taken place since 2004. Is that right?

Jim Knight: Between autumn 2002 and autumn 2004, Ofsted carried out full inspections of 28 Connexions partnerships. It is worth saying that of those partnerships, 89 per cent. were rated as satisfactory or better, and 60 per cent. as good or better. There have been no further inspections focused solely on Connexions partnerships. Instead, from September 2005, Ofsted, along with other inspectorates, has undertaken holistic joint area reviews—known in the trade as JARs—of services for children and young people in a local authority area. JARs replace the separate inspections of local education authorities, social services, Connexions services and the provision for students aged 14 to 19.
The programme of JARs will end in late 2008, and from next year, most inspections of area-level services will be bespoke to an area and triggered by a multi-inspectorate annual comprehensive area assessment—CAA—led by the Audit Commission and including Ofsted. Inspectorates are currently working up arrangements for the CAA. The first consultation on principles will end this month, and the inspectorates plan to consult on details in summer 2008. That is the normal scenario that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings asked about in respect of how the Secretary of State will instruct the chief inspector to carry out inspections of Connexions. That will be rolled into the CAA process.
The clause provides for a flexible and responsive system that allows the views of service users to be taken into account and that can target inspections to the level of risk. I do not believe that using a fixed number of requests as a trigger for an inspection is the best way to use inspection resources. More importantly, that would risk sending the message that the receipt of fewer than 50 requests, however serious they are, is not significant. I hope that in the light of that compelling reasoning, the reasonable hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings will withdraw the amendment.

John Hayes: I am not sure that the Minister’s reasoning was as compelling as he would have us believe, but I will not press the amendment. I have no wish to inconvenience the Committee unduly, but we must get the issue of inspection right. I am not sure that JARs are the best mechanism for dealing with Connexions inspections, and I hope that the Minister will reflect again on how we can build a better, more responsive protocol for the inspection of careers advice and guidance in particular, as that will be critical to the working of the Bill. Nevertheless, the Minister’s reasoning was just compelling enough to encourage me, and I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 43, in clause 60, page 32, line 27, at end insert—
‘(1A) Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector must, in exercising his functions in subsection (1), inspect any support services provided and make an assessment of whether such services facilitate the effective participation of persons belonging in a local authority area to whom this Part applies and who have special educational needs.’.
The Connexions service plays a vital role in helping young people with special educational needs to make the transition from education to employment. I have emphasised how significant we believe the challenge is. There are certainly problems with how many young people with special educational needs secure appropriate employment. There are some great success stories, which need to be championed and trumpeted. However, as an academic study in 2003 found, there are significant problems with the service. That report concluded:
“The findings from this project are consistent with other studies in highlighting the unsatisfactory nature of much transition planning for young people with learning difficulties...we remain concerned that, despite efforts to stimulate interest, work and employment hardly featured. Raising expectations and belief in young people and their families about work must become much more central to the educational and the Connexions task. This must be matched by close working between PAs and Careers Advisors in the Connexions service plus the development links with local supported employment agencies—where they exist.”
Amendment No. 43 specifies that inspection of the Connexions service should include the inspection of facilities and services for young people with special educational needs. It therefore allows a broader consideration than my previous amendment, which applied only to people with visual impairment. That academic report—“Connecting with Connexions: the role of the Personal Adviser with young people with special educational and support needs”, by Bob Grove PhD and Alison Giraud-Saunders—highlighted examples of good practice. My hon. Friend the Member for Upminster and I have both mentioned the ROSE project, the supported employment project in her area that does exactly the job—described as vital in the report I quoted—on the transition from education to employment with appropriate advice and, where necessary, support.
The situation that prevails in my hon. Friend’s area is not, however, universally enjoyed. There are insufficient high-quality supported employment opportunities for young people with special educational needs. As that academic study identified, that is partly because employment is not given sufficient priority in the guidance that young people with SEN are offered. To guarantee that it is given greater priority, the Bill must state that the Connexions inspection should look closely at the service’s success in providing such advice to people with SEN. This is another matter about which members on both sides of the Committee have strong feelings, and I feel particularly strongly about it. The Minister will know that people with SEN figure largely in the group he is determined to bring back into learning, and thus employment, because people with such needs clearly do not always do best under the system at the moment. At the age of 16, they are often virtually abandoned as far as their employment opportunities are concerned. I do not want to exaggerate the difference between us, but I urge the Minister to pay appropriate attention to this issue by demonstrating in his response to the amendment that the Government are determined that SEN young people should have just the same opportunities as their contemporaries whenever possible.

Jim Knight: I should like to reassure the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings that we, too, take very seriously the provision of appropriate Connexions services for young people with learning difficulties and disabilities. The duty on a local education authority proposed in clause 54 is to make services available to all young people between 13 and 19, and for young people with special educational needs between 13 and 24. Young people with special educational needs are therefore implicitly and explicitly included.
The quality standards for information, advice and guidance will be the centrepiece of the guidance on Connexions services that we will issue to local education authorities under clause 54(4)(b). They require that additional and sustained guidance and support is provided to young people with special needs or learning difficulties or disabilities. Clause 60 allows Her Majesty’s chief inspector to target an inspection on the provision of services for a particular part of the Connexions client group. The clause also allows the Secretary of State to target a request for an inspection in a similar fashion. Crucially—I know that the hon. Gentleman would not be satisfied with the word, “allows”, as he wants something more concrete than a power and closer to a duty—all assessments and inspections of children’s services are governed by the statutory framework for inspection of children’s services, under section 21 of the Children Act 2004.
The framework sets out 36 judgments which inspectors will seek to make. Five of the 36 judgments relate to children and young people with learning difficulties or disabilities. The framework will apply to local authority Connexions services inspected under clause 60. That being the case, I do not consider that we need to make an additional specific reference in the clause to make that possible.

Nick Gibb: The Minister needs to give an assurance to outside bodies as well as the Committee. For example, TreeHouse has written to the Committee:
“In order to ensure that there is effective monitoring of the provisions for those young people with SEN we would like to see a requirement for Her Majesty’s...Inspector...to have available SEN specialist inspectors...We believe that such a focus would help to drive up standards.”
The Minister needs to give an assurance to TreeHouse, as well as to Committee members.

Jim Knight: Certainly, in the words that I have just uttered I sought to reassure organisations such as TreeHouse about the provision. I take seriously its request that people with specialist skills should undertake SEN inspections, although I do not think that that is the subject of the amendment.

John Hayes: Will the Minister offer further reassurance to the Opposition and interested agencies by providing an assessment of how many NEETs are people with special educational needs? Will he give us a feel for the modelling that the Government have done as to how the Bill will apply specifically to people with SEN? Encouraging people to participate is one thing, but dealing with their needs is another. Unless they both happen, we are not going to deal with concerns such as those that my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton raised.

Jim Knight: I do not have to hand or to the forefront of my mind the proportion of NEETs who learning difficulties or disabilities. However, if that information comes to me at any point, obviously I will pass it on to the hon. Gentleman and to the Committee.
It is Government policy that inspection activities should be proportionate to risk. Specifying the focus of an inspection in that way would act against the policy and against our aims of reducing the regulatory burden. Clearly, there are circumstances when we might want Ofsted to carry out a specific inspection, and we have the powers to do that. Those inspections would be based on risk attached to information or to concerns about a particular service. However, to have the attitude that there is a general risk is contrary to the approach of specifying such matters through the overarching framework, which is the right way forward. May I tell the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings that what he proposes in the amendment is already possible, as it is addressed in the overarching framework of children’s services? Therefore, while I agree with the sentiment of the amendment, it is not necessary and I hope that he will withdraw it.

John Hayes: I am not entirely happy with what the Minister told us. The truth is that Ofsted does not inspect Connexions, or at least not very often—not since 2004. The notion that the existing regime is adequate in that regard is, at best, questionable. Similarly, I am not sure that the Government have given sufficient consideration in the Bill to people with special educational needs, not just in terms of inspection, but more generally. The Minister would do the Committee a service if he came back with an analysis of SEN in relation to NEETs and another detailed analysis of SEN in relation to the Bill’s provisions. The challenge is to bring into training and employment a much greater of proportion of people with special educational needs than are there at the moment. Such a challenge will only be met if we put the right advice and support in place. It is out there, in some places, as I said, but there are massive gaps in provision.

Jim Knight: The hon. Gentleman believes that we have not paid sufficient attention to people with special educational needs. Throughout the Committee sittings, I have said time and again that we want every young person to be able to participate and that we need to configure services by local authorities and others to ensure that everyone, regardless of their needs, has the opportunity to do so. That is precisely what we want to achieve with the Bill: the galvanising effect to offer appropriate services for every single young person in this country, regardless of special educational needs.

John Hayes: I acknowledge that the Minister has made it clear that he wants everyone to participate—he would hardly introduce a Bill that insisted on universal participation if he did not want everyone to be involved. However, I am arguing that to get everyone to participate, particularly those with special educational needs, will be a very big mountain. To climb it, we have to put into place high-quality advice and support for people with the greatest needs, including those with learning difficulties and other disabilities.

Jim Knight: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his generosity in giving way. If he wishes to know how seriously we take this, it might help him to know that the annual destination survey by Connexions on the activities of young people on 1 November of the year in which they completed year 11 shows that in 2005, about 25 per cent. of young people with special educational needs whose destinations were known were not in education or training, 9.2 per cent of them being employed, and 15.2 per cent. being unemployed. Support for transition was one of the issues highlighted in the “Aiming High for Disabled Children: Better Support for Families” report of 2006, and there is a £19 million transition support programme for those young people.

John Hayes: That is a helpful addition to our considerations. I will not press the matter to a vote, but I urge the Minister to look again at the issue of inspection, particularly with regard to special educational needs. I think that we underestimate at our peril the scale of the peak that we must surmount. We will short-change people with special educational needs unless we put the right systems in place to allow them to achieve their potential, just like other young people. I am determined to continue to make that case during the passage of the Bill by defending and advancing those young people’s interests, but at this juncture I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Nick Gibb: I beg to move amendment No. 101, in clause 60, page 32, line 34, at end insert ‘and the quality of such services.’.
It is a pleasure to take a full part in the Committee’s proceedings, having been the bag man for my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings for the past two hours. Clause 60 requires the inspector to conduct an inspection of Connexions when she thinks fit and when the Secretary of State requires her to do so. Subsection (3) states:
“A reference in subsection (1) to the provision of services includes a reference to the management and use of resources in providing services.”
It does not say anything about the quality of the service, or that the inspector should inspect the services in relation to quality, so the amendment would add the phrase,
“and the quality of such services”,
to the end of subsection (3). The Government want Connexions to be a high-quality service, but there are problems, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings has highlighted, given that there has not been an inspection of Connexions by Ofsted since 2004. “Quality Standards for Young People’s Information Advice and Guidance”, which has been published by the Minister’s Department, states:
“Staff providing information, advice and guidance services”
should be
“appropriately qualified, work to relevant professional standards and receive continuing professional development.”
It states that staff should have the
“skills, knowledge and qualifications to deliver a high quality service”.
They should be able to
“deliver information, advice and guidance to diverse client groups”
and
“know where to access impartial specialist advice.”
Guidance has therefore been published requiring quality services to be provided. It is important that the legislation require the chief inspector to have regard to the quality of the service, given the problems that have arisen in the past, and that there is a specific requirement that she have regard to the quality of provision set out in the legislation.

Jim Knight: As we have heard, the amendment seeks to include in the clause the words, “quality of...services”, as that applies to the scope of inspections. I can understand the concerns of the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, because one does not see the word, “quality”, when one reads the clause. However, as I will explain, the amendment is unnecessary because quality is specified in other pieces of legislation.
The hon. Gentleman has repeated the notion that there has been no inspection of Connexions since 2004. As I think I have set out to the Committee, there have been inspections of Connexions services since 2004, but not a specific inspection, as those inspections have been wrapped up in other local authority inspections. However, it would be wrong for anyone reading the record to be led into thinking that there has been no inspection since 2004. Section 118 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 provides that the chief inspector has the general duty of keeping the Secretary of State informed about the quality of services within her remit, as well as improvements in the quality of such services. Additionally, section 119 of the 2006 Act sets out that the chief inspector is to perform her functions for general purposes. That includes encouraging the improvement of activities within the chief inspector’s remit, and the carrying on of such activities in a user-focused fashion, both of which are measures of the quality of services.
Those purposes will apply to inspections under clause 60 in the same way that they do to all the chief inspector’s existing functions. The amendment could have the undesirable consequence of bringing into question the issue whether other inspections should focus on the quality of services being inspected if that function is specified. Accordingly, I invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

Nick Gibb: I am assured by those words, Mr. Bayley. It is good to have them on record, and I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 60 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses63 and 64 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 65

Assessments relating to learning difficulties

Nick Gibb: I beg to move amendment No. 44, in clause 65, page 35, line 7, after ‘person’, insert
‘or the person was participating in School Action or School Action Plus programmes,’.

Hugh Bayley: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 45, in clause 65, page 35, line 16, after ‘age’, insert
‘or the person was participating in School Action or School Action Plus programmes,’.

Nick Gibb: Clause 65 which inserts new sections into the Learning and Skills Act 2000, the effect of which, as the explanatory note states,
“is to transfer to local education authorities, and to expand, the existing duty of the Secretary of State to arrange for assessments of a person’s educational and training needs in certain circumstances, and his power to arrange such assessments.”
The notes go on to state that the clause
“places a duty on a local education authority to arrange for an assessment of a person in respect of whom they maintain a statement of special educational needs, who is either in his last year of compulsory schooling or over compulsory school age but still at school, at some time during the person’s last year of schooling.”
We will return to the matter of someone who is in the last year of schooling later. My concern is about the phrase used in the notes, which suggests that the assessment applies only to someone with a statement of special educational needs.
The National Autistic Society has taken a close interest in the Bill and is concerned about the narrowness of that requirement. In its brief to the Committee, it says:
“The references to learning difficulty and special educational needs are welcome but not sufficient. In particular, the duty to assess education and training needs (clause 65) should not be restricted to those young people who have a statement.”
Inspired by those concerns, which we share, we tabled the amendment, which would include children who are subject to school action and school action plus programmes and therefore fall short of qualifying for a full statement of special educational needs under the provisions of the clause.
The National Autistic Society says:
“The requirement upon local authorities to assess the education and training needs of certain young people is welcome and this information should be used to inform the development of support services for young people.”
It emphasises the point:
“If this requirement is considered important and worthwhile it should be on offer to a much broader range of young people than those with statements of special educational needs.”
It goes on to say:
“Government policy is to encourage local authorities to reduce reliance on the use of statements, and there is considerable variation in access to the statementing system across the country.”
I am sure that many hon. Members, both in Committee and in the House, could give examples of constituents who have had enormous difficulty obtaining a statement of special educational needs for their child. Obtaining even an assessment can be very difficult and may require legal action. That is why the National Autistic Society go on to say:
“The use of statements as a passport to an assessment of education and training needs will therefore further exacerbate uneven access to support for many young people with special educational needs.”
It cites the example of young people with Asperger’s syndrome who
“may be less likely to have a statement of SEN than those with autism but would still benefit greatly from an assessment at 16. Although these young people are able academically, without the right support they are likely to struggle or even fail.”
The purpose of the two amendments is to ensure that those children who do not qualify for an SEN assessment will nevertheless be given an assessment under the clause.

David Laws: Good afternoon, Mr. Bayley. I rise not only to support the amendments, but to prove to you and the Minister that I have not taken any Trappist vows since our proceedings ended on Thursday. I hope that you are reassured by that.
The amendments are important and link with amendment No. 160, which we will discuss later. They are necessary to ensure that the increasing focus of statements on a small minority of pupils does not mean that we miss out on diagnosing the needs of other young people who are covered by School Action and School Action Plus and who may well need support to continue in education and training post-16.
The briefing that the Local Government Association provided to the Committee comments very briefly on the clause. All it says is:
“It is conceivable comments may be passed on the adequacy or otherwise of local authority SEN provision/assessments under existing regulations.”
For many people across the country, I suspect that that is something of an understatement. Much concern has been voiced in the past year and further back about the inconsistency of statementing across the country. Frankly, there is a concern that statementing is rationed in many parts of the country, particularly in smaller authorities with very limited budgets, where providing a larger budget for statementing would mean taking money away from other areas. Therefore, as the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton set out very clearly, there is concern about some young people in parts of the country where there are greater budget pressures and more rationing who may have very similar needs and characteristics to other young people in parts of the country where there is a more generous approach. We do not want to have a local lottery where some young people simply do not have their needs properly captured and so are not well provided for beyond the age of 16.
Many of the outside lobby groups have drawn our attention to the fact that the Government have a policy for all youngsters in school of trying not to statement excessively. They want to use School Action and School Action Plus more frequently than in the past and, on the whole, that is quite sensible. We do not want to create a vast bureaucracy around many young people. We want a lot of their needs to be dealt with as flexibly as possible, both at school level and by enabling local authorities to cascade additional resources down that do not require the same level of bureaucracy and intervention as is inevitable when statementing is involved.
Because of that trend in Government policy, there is an even greater risk that some of the youngsters on School Action Plus in particular, but School Action as well, could have quite high needs that require support beyond the age of 16. As well as the concern about rationing and inconsistencies across the country, there is the concern that if the Government’s policy is to reduce statementing, we could have quite a few youngsters who are not statemented but who, because of their School Action Plus or School Action status, have high needs. Many times in Committee, we have commented on the difficulties that will be encountered in keeping young people with high needs in education beyond the age of 16. It is therefore important that the Bill ensures that there is a proper assessment and appropriate support leading from that assessment for young people beyond the age of 16. I hope that in responding to these amendments and to amendment No. 160, the Minister can reassure us about the way that this will be handled.

Hugh Bayley: We shall deal with amendment No. 160 later. We are currently considering amendments Nos. 44 and 45.

Peter Soulsby: I am sympathetic to the amendments. The Government are rightly seeking to encourage local authorities not to rely too heavily on statements of special educational need and to move increasingly towards School Action and School Action Plus. Clearly that leaves open the risk that were the provision to be specified only in terms of those with statements of special educational need, those on the autistic spectrum and others might lose out. I hope that if the Government cannot support the amendment, my hon. Friend the Minister can at least reassure the Committee that there will be other ways in which the needs of those in the relevant age group who do not qualify for a statement of educational needs can none the less be met.

Jim Knight: Under the clause as it stands, a local education authority is under a duty to arrange for a learning difficulty assessment for young people with a statement of special educational needs during their last year of compulsory schooling. The duty also covers statemented young people who stay on at school after the end of compulsory schooling. The duty applies where the authority believes that the person will leave school at the end of that year to receive post-16 education or training.
The amendment would extend the duty to include young people who are being supported through School Action and School Action Plus. Let me explain what these terms mean. Under the SEN code of practice, if a child’s needs are not severe or complex enough to justify a statement, their special educational needs are met at School Action or School Action Plus. At School Action, the child’s special educational needs are met entirely out of the school’s resources. At School Action Plus, the child’s needs will mainly be met out of the school’s own resources, but the school will also receive some outside help, for example advice from the local authority’s educational psychologists.
Even though young people who receive support though School Action, or School Action Plus are not covered by local authorities’ duty to arrange an assessment, the local authority has the power to arrange one. There will be many instances where it will be appropriate for young people who have been supported by School Action or School Action Plus to receive an assessment. Where a young person would clearly benefit from an assessment, the local authority will be expected to arrange one. This will be monitored through performance management systems, and if it is clear that a local authority is not exercising its power appropriately, it could be legally challenged. In line with our expectation, we will confirm in statutory guidance that every young person who would benefit from a learning difficulty assessment should receive one.
That is true whether the young person has a statement of SEN or so forth and falls into the group to which the duty to provide an assessment applies, or whether they are supported through School Action or School Action Plus and so fall into the group to which the power to provide an assessment applies. We therefore expect young people with severe or complex needs to receive an assessment whether they have a statement of SEN or not.

Nick Gibb: Why is one a duty and one simply an expectation?

Jim Knight: I am just about to address that very point, about which I thought the hon. Gentleman, being an intelligent and perspicacious individual, would ask me.
I do not believe it is the right course of action to compel local authorities to arrange learning difficulty assessments for every young person supported through School Action or School Action Plus. Special educational needs cover a wide span of difficulties; those needs may be specific to the demands of a school environment, and be no longer directly relevant when a young person moves into further education, training or higher education.

Angela Watkinson: The Minister will acknowledge that there is an inevitable link between the budgetary constraints on local authorities and the provision of services for children with special needs. Sixteen or 17-year-olds who are on the autistic disorder spectrum, who may face moving on from their familiar school environment to a new, college environment, may not respond well to change. They will need a lot of support, but there may be cases where the local education authority simply does not have the funding to give that support. Will additional funding for local education authorities accompany the requirement, so that they can fulfil their duties toward 16 and 17-year-olds with needs of particular support?

Jim Knight: As the hon. Lady says, it is important that vulnerable young people have the support they need, particularly those on the autism spectrum, for whom that transition may be difficult. On the question of resources, I cannot give her a specific answer in terms of how much, but local authorities have delegated special educational needs funds in some areas, so they would carry out assessments. We believe that local authorities are and should be properly resourced to do this. The fact that we are going to specify in guidance that they must carry out an assessment, if it is appropriate on a case-by-case basis, reflects how important we think it is that local authorities find the resources needed.
It is not in the best interests of a young person or a good use of an authority’s resources to compel the authority to arrange an assessment when one is not necessary. Instead, the decision should be made on a case-by-case basis, with the local authority making the decision in partnership with the young person. In particular, the young person’s personal adviser from Connexions should hold the ring of deciding, with the young person, their parents and their school, whether an assessment is required and whether not to carry out the assessment would be in contravention of the statutory guidance that we will have issued to the local authority.

David Laws: The Minister is surely right to say that there may be some youngsters who will not need support post-16. However, as the amendment focuses on assessment, can he explain why, in his view, there is no need to make the assessment itself, which could conclude that support is not then required?

Jim Knight: Assessments are ongoing. There is the compulsory assessment at the end of the compulsory schooling set out in the clause and the extension beyond, so that there would be considerable understanding of what needs there are on the part of the young person, their parents, the school or other learning institution and the Connexions personal adviser. Assessments continue to be carried out for young people. The power is discretionary but it is a discretion that we would expect to be exercised in favour of those who would benefit. Not all may benefit, so it is right that, where an assessment is considered unnecessary, a local authority will not be compelled to do one.
In many ways I do not think there is much difference between us. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton has said we should proceed on a case-by-case basis. There is considerable understanding of the needs of the young people who are on School Action or School Action Plus; and, as I have said, if a young person would benefit from an assessment we will be saying to local authorities through the statutory guidance route that they should carry one out. I do not think there is a difference between us and I hope, on that basis, the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.

Nick Gibb: I remain unconvinced by the explanation of the difference between the needs of a child who does qualify for a statement of special educational needs and one who is subject to the School Action and School Action Plus programmes. As my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster said, given the current budgetary constraints on many local authorities, there is a deep reluctance in some authorities to award many statements. In the past, children who are now on School Action or School Action Plus would probably have been issued with a statement of special educational needs. The Minister says not all children who are on School Action or School Action Plus would benefit from assessment, but how do we know that unless an assessment is carried out? I believe the amendment is important and I would like to test the opinion of the Committee and press it to a Division.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 3, Noes 8.

Question accordingly negatived.

Nick Gibb: I beg to move amendment No. 57, in clause 65, page 35, line 13, at end insert—
‘(2A) If a local education authority in England maintains a statement of special educational needs for a person and if, during the year, the person leaves school to pursue alternative post-16 education, the authority must arrange for an assessment to be conducted early in the first year of the new course.’.
The amendment deals with people who leave school unexpectedly, perhaps after disappointing GCSE results, to pursue an alternative option, or who carry on into the sixth form for a very short period before leaving, having found out that it is not for them. Those people will not have had the assessment that the clause requires them to have had in the last year of education, as it is assumed that they will be continuing with their education. The purpose of the amendment, therefore, is to add a new subsection (2A) to proposed new section 139A of the Learning and Skills Act 2000 providing that an assessment should be arranged for them. That is an appropriate amendment to ensure that those children who do leave unexpectedly do not slip through the net.

It being One o’clockThe Chairmanadjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned till this day at Four o’clock.